Sending email from command line?

Hello

I'm running Ubuntu 7.04 Server to which I need to add e-mail
capability. I installed Postfix through "apt-get install postfix",
edited /etc/postfix/main.cf.

Since I couldn't figure out how to use the sendmail command, I
installed mailutils... but failed finding examples on how to use
/usr/bin/mail with all the fields set from the command line:

echo "Call from customer X" | mail -s "Call from customer X" -f
postfix@acme.com fred@acme.com:

ubuntu postfix/smtp[10213]: D24476343E1: to=<fred@acme.com>,
relay=smtp.isp.tld [some_ip_here]:25, delay=0.37,
delays=0.08/0.04/0.22/0.03, dsn=5.0.0, dUmMy=bounced (host
smtp.isp.tld[some_ip_here] said: 504 <root@acme>: Sender address
rejected: need fully-qualified address (in reply to MAIL FROM
command))

Is it possible to specify the FROM and TO fields from the command
line, and if yes, how?

Thank you.

> echo "Call from customer X" | mail -s "Call from customer X" -f
> postfix@acme.com fred@acme.com:
>
> ubuntu postfix/smtp[10213]: D24476343E1: to=<fred@acme.com>,
> relay=smtp.isp.tld [some_ip_here]:25, delay=0.37,
> delays=0.08/0.04/0.22/0.03, dsn=5.0.0, dUmMy=bounced (host
> smtp.isp.tld[some_ip_here] said: 504 <root@acme>: Sender address
> rejected: need fully-qualified address (in reply to MAIL FROM
> command))
>
> Is it possible to specify the FROM and TO fields from the command
> line, and if yes, how?

The "to" address was OK, as the transcript shows. -f doesn't do what
you think it does. It's hard to fiddle with the "from" address. If it
was easy, it would be even easier to forge. I suspect it is possible to
fix the domain name (which is what postfix is complaining about) but
I'll leave that for someone who knows postfix to address. Making sure
there is a fully qualified name in /etc/hosts might be a good start.

On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 21:38:29 -0500, Allen McIntosh
<nospam@mouse-potato.com> wrote:

>> echo "Call from customer X" | mail -s "Call from customer X" -f
>> postfix@acme.com fred@acme.com:
>>
>> ubuntu postfix/smtp[10213]: D24476343E1: to=<fred@acme.com>,
>> relay=smtp.isp.tld [some_ip_here]:25, delay=0.37,
>> delays=0.08/0.04/0.22/0.03, dsn=5.0.0, dUmMy=bounced (host
>> smtp.isp.tld[some_ip_here] said: 504 <root@acme>: Sender address
>> rejected: need fully-qualified address (in reply to MAIL FROM
>> command))
>>
>> Is it possible to specify the FROM and TO fields from the command
>> line, and if yes, how?
>
>The "to" address was OK, as the transcript shows. -f doesn't do what
>you think it does. It's hard to fiddle with the "from" address. If it
>was easy, it would be even easier to forge. I suspect it is possible to
>fix the domain name (which is what postfix is complaining about) but
>I'll leave that for someone who knows postfix to address. Making sure
>there is a fully qualified name in /etc/hosts might be a good start.

What's wrong with configuring a text file containing
`From: your@email.address
Subject: How to send email
To: Recipient@example.com

This is the message'

And then send that with `sendmail --t < file'
?
--
buck

On Tue, 13 Nov 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.networking, in
article <dm2ij3p0h85mvsnflddlvv4savfhpkgft1@4ax.com>, Gilles Ganault wrote:

>I'm running Ubuntu 7.04 Server to which I need to add e-mail
>capability. I installed Postfix through "apt-get install postfix",
>edited /etc/postfix/main.cf.

I don't use Postfix, but did you also edit /etc/postfix/aliases and
run 'postalias' to make the changes effective?

>Since I couldn't figure out how to use the sendmail command

Yes - 'sendmail' is a Mail Transfer Agent, just as Postfix, Qmail,
and EXIM. Sendmail is not for _creating_ mail, or _reading_ mail.
For that, you want any of the dozens of Mail User Agents -
'usr/bin/mail' being one of many.

>I installed mailutils... but failed finding examples on how to use
>/usr/bin/mail with all the fields set from the command line:

Yeah, '/usr/bin/mail' is an ancient, crude tool for creating and
reading mail. It's not set up to forge usernames, so mucking with
the headers isn't going to do much.

>echo "Call from customer X" | mail -s "Call from customer X" -f
>postfix@acme.com fred@acme.com:

Nope.

>ubuntu postfix/smtp[10213]: D24476343E1: to=<fred@acme.com>,
>relay=smtp.isp.tld [some_ip_here]:25, delay=0.37,
>delays=0.08/0.04/0.22/0.03, dsn=5.0.0, dUmMy=bounced (host
>smtp.isp.tld[some_ip_here] said: 504 <root@acme>: Sender address
>rejected: need fully-qualified address (in reply to MAIL FROM
>command))

DO NOT USE THE ROOT ACCOUNT FOR ORDINARY TASKS.

1. The root account is for maintenance and administration.
2. Many mail server won't accept mail from 'root', knowing it to be
either forged or spam.
3. The remote mail server is complaining about mail from 'root@acme'
saying that 'acme' is not a domain. However, 'acme.com' is a
registered address (registered in California in 1991) and you are
not likely to have permission to use that.
4. Trying to send mail to Internet mail servers _OTHER THAN YOUR ISP_
using a bogus domain name will often get your mail rejected (or
worse, reported as spam) by those servers.

>Is it possible to specify the FROM

Generally speaking - no. Most mail tools only send mail as the username
that is running the mail user agent. You can send files directly to the
Mail Transport Agent (EXIM, postfix, qmail, sendmail), but they may not
accept it, or may include warnings that the mail is bogus. Likewise,
the remote mail server may reject the mail, based on a number of mail
blocklists.

>and TO fields from the command line

You've already got the 'To' field set, so that's not your problem.

>and if yes, how?

Run the mail creation program as a valid user so that you don't have
to fake the sender information.

Old guy

On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 03:25:22 +0100, Gilles Ganault wrote:
> Hello
>
> I'm running Ubuntu 7.04 Server to which I need to add e-mail
> capability. I installed Postfix through "apt-get install postfix",
> edited /etc/postfix/main.cf.

Can we assume you have this line in main.cf
masquerade_exceptions = root

That will help keeping root's mail on your LAN :)
instead of escaping onto the Internet. :(

Can we also assume you modified aliases's file about/around the 11'th
line from the bottom, to a user fred, done a
postalias aliases
postfix stop
cp /dev/null mail logs (errors, warnings, info) in /var/log/mail/ (guessing)
postfix start
and cat those same files to check for errors.

Then logged in to the fred user account, set up thunderbird or some email
client in/out server to be the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of your
node, and sent/received message from fred.

If all the above worked, I would assume fred could click up a terminal and
doing a

mail -s "Subject text here" $USER < /etc/profile
would cause fred to have /etc/profile in his mail client's mail inbox.

If so, check your aliases change by doing a
mail -s "Subject text here" root < /etc/profile
and see if fred gets a repeat email except it will be from root.

Now you know your MTA (postfix) is working on the LAN.

> ubuntu postfix/smtp[10213]: D24476343E1: to=<fred@acme.com>,
> relay=smtp.isp.tld [some_ip_here]:25, delay=0.37,
> delays=0.08/0.04/0.22/0.03, dsn=5.0.0, dUmMy=bounced (host
> smtp.isp.tld[some_ip_here] said: 504 <root@acme>: Sender address
> rejected: need fully-qualified address (in reply to MAIL FROM
> command))
>
> Is it possible to specify the FROM and TO fields from the command
> line, and if yes, how?

Yes but you have no reason to be dinking with those lines unless you
are a spammer. :(
Or your isp requires your email header to be from it's domain when
connecting to it's smtp server.

Usual problem is you have not given your node a FQDN.
If node name is darkstar.acme then there is the bad domain name for
the node darkstar.

Let's assume your ip address is 82.237.75.54 for your node. And you
tacked on .com to careate a FQDN so node name is now darkstar.acme.com

That is bad because
$ host acme.com
shows
acme.com has address 216.27.178.28
acme.com mail is handled by 10 smtp-b.acme.com.
acme.com mail is handled by 10 smtp-c.acme.com.

and acme.com sys admin or fred@acme.com will not be happy with getting
fred email.

I recommend use someting like darkstar.acme.invalid so you have a
FQDN for your node darkstar, and mail can route around on your LAN for the
acme.invalid domain.

..invalid is a fine suffix for an unregistered/madeup domain name.

The next part of your mail problem is you do someting like
mail -s "Thanks Bit" bittwister@mouse-potato.com < /dev/null

Assuming you have set relayhost = smtp.proxad.net or some such value.,
I would receive A

Subject: Thanks Bit
From: Fred Ganault

and if I replied to it, my MTA would try to send it to
fred@darkstar.acme.invalid

Several solutions.
1 You create a fred account at proxad.net
You use /etc/postfix/generic to change
acme.invalid to proxad.net
did a
postfix generic
added smtp_generic_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/generic to main.cf
postfix stop
cp /dev/null mail logs (errors, warnings, info) in /var/log/mail/ (guessing)
postfix start
and check those same files for errors.

the next
mail -s "Thanks Bit" bittwister@mouse-potato.com < /dev/null
from fred's terminal
would give the same message except the mail header from: would contain
fred@proxad.net

Downside there,
Fred has to log into proxad.net to get see the mail. :(
all mail leaving darkstar has a return address of user_here@proxad.net :(

2 Use canonical_sender,virtual (my solution)

cp canonical canonical_sender
to munge the from header into a hotmail acount
There you can set
fred@darkstar.acme.invalid fred@hotmail.com
postmap canonical canonical_sender
You setup virtual for LAN users
fred@darkstar.acme.invalid fred
postmap virtual
postfix stop/start

Now bittwister's reply would goto fred@hotmail.com
and fred could have a cron job using
getlive to pull the hotmail.com email down into freds inbox.

If you cannot get getlive with apt-get, code can be found
http://sourceforge.net

When all else fails, there is
http://www.postfix.org

On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:45:07 GMT, Bit Twister
<BitTwister@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
>Yes but you have no reason to be dinking with those lines unless you
>are a spammer. :(

Thanks guys for the help. I just needed a command-line SMTP mail
utility so that an application running on the server could e-mail
notifications.

After failing to find such thing, I figured I didn't actually need to
run an MTA on the server, and ended up running a Python script to send
the e-mail through my ISP's SMTP server.

========
#!/usr/bin/python

from email.MIMEText import MIMEText
import smtplib,sys

body='''this text will become the body of the message
Using triple-quotes you can span it easily over multiple lines.
the result of an action'''

msg = MIMEText(body)
From = "myapp@acme..com"
To = "some_user@acme.comr"
msg['From'] = From
msg['To'] = To
msg['Subject'] = "Call from " + sys.argv[1]

server = smtplib.SMTP("smtp.isp.net")
server.sendmail(From,[To],msg.as_string())
server.quit
========

Thx again.